ECB investigating broadcast options for county cricket

England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves has said the governing body is looking at creating various broadcast packages for county cricket amid a proposed overhaul of the domestic game.

Graves told UK newspaper The Telegraph that he and ECB chief executive Tom Harrison will present a “range of options” for a new structure to the counties in March with a view to a relaunch in 2017.

The ECB hopes counties will accept a new model that will enable the board to negotiate an individual television deal for the county competition when its current contract with pay-television broadcaster Sky concludes.

In January, Sky agreed a two-year extension, from 2018 to 2019, to its partnership with the ECB, covering exclusive live rights to England’s home fixtures, county matches, women's and age grade cricket.

“What we have got to do is to generate money for the domestic game,” Graves said. “We have never done that. The domestic game has been rolled up into the international rights that we have sold. We want to look at splitting that out and getting value for our domestic game which means finding out how we can do it better from a broadcaster and spectator point of view.

“We will look at creating various (broadcast) packages. We have to look at it on a broad basis. We will go out to market and tender and see what happens.

“Sky have done a fantastic job and we want them involved going forward but they know they are in a commercial world. We will go out to tender to everybody who is interested and then it is up to them to put the bids in. That is how it will work.”